Staria's Story: Skies of Blue
by Melissa Rose
Summary: REWRITTEN: Staria OceanRose is a seventeen year old girl with a mission. It's 2035 and she lives in a world where the Night World has taken over. It's up to her to go back to the past... and change everything.


**Staria's Story: Skies of Blue**

**Author's Note: **I wrote Staria's Story iyears/i ago when I was in high school. Thirteen years later, I stumbled upon it on an old website and decided to do a rewrite, now that I'm older and (arguably not) wiser. I plan on doing the same with "Beyond Millennium" and my own take on "Strange Fate" (and plan on finishing both). However, given that these were all written in anticipation of the Final Battle happening on the cusp of 1999/2000, that timeline will remain the same. No cell phones, widespread email/internet/Google here, folks! Also no Lady Gaga. Sorry:D

If you're interested in reading the 'first' version from 1996/1997, you can find it at: .. Although, you should be forewarned that, for some reason, I was unable to spell the word 'skies' correctly at the time.

**Spoilers: ** Spoilers for all of the Night World books.

**Summary: **Staria OceanRose is a seventeen year old girl with a mission. It's 2035 and she lives in a world where the Night World has taken over. It's up to her to go back to the past... and change everything.

**Disclaimers:** All characters from Night World books (ie: Ash, Mary-Lynnette, Rowan, Kestrel, Jade, Mark, Poppy, James, Thea, Eric, Gillian, David, Rashel, Quinn, Hannah Thierry, Jez, Morgead, Delos, Maggie, Keller, Galen, Nissa, Winnie, Hunter, and Maya) are the creation of LJ Smith. Staria Oceanrose, Andromeda Redfern Oceanrose and Adrian Oceanrose are my characters.

**Chapter One**

"That's a suicide mission," seventeen-year-old Staria Oceanrose said stubbornly, looking at her mother with a mixture of disbelief and disgust in her ever-changing colored eyes. As if to prove a point, Staria's irises shifted to dark purple and flashed indignantly.

Her mother, Andromeda, winced and she ran her thin fingers back through her auburn hair. Telling her daughter this – any of this – was clearly painful to her, even though she knew it had to be done. "You're chosen Staria. You know that." Though why her own child had been _chosen_, when Andromeda had already lost so much, and seen more than she'd ever wanted to, was beyond her comprehension. Perhaps it was a Redfern 'thing'. They did have a way of getting into trouble and Andromeda had been born to the Redfern bloodline.

"Was Daddy chosen?" Staria demanded. "Tell me. _Was_ he?" Shaking her dark head angrily, Staria went on, "They tortured him! They didn't show him a shred of mercy. And it's amazing they haven't done the same to us already! We're freaks as it is. This is crazy!"

It was fear talking. Staria was scared. Of _course_ she was scared; she'd have to be out of her mind to feel otherwise. But it was also anger. She was furious. And she had her grandmother's temper.

Andromeda's blue eyes filled with tears at the mention of her deceased husband. Her soulmate. And, of course, her daughter was right. They were freaks, by the Night World's standards anyway. Andromeda was half human, half lamia, which in these times, was practically as good as a death sentence. She didn't have a single memory of her own mother who, being human, had been brutally murdered when Andromeda was only two.

Her father had never gotten over it.

The most she had was an old photograph, worn with age by now, from years of Andromeda sleeping with it clutched in her tiny fingers as a child. She suspected that her father had more hidden away somewhere, someplace that no one would ever find them. But, if he did, he never admitted it. And he certainly never showed them to her.

Andromeda was well aware that, probably, the only reason she'd been allowed to live was because of her father's Redfern name. _That_ still had clout, even if her father's position of power had been severely compromised. But it wasn't the Redfern name Andromeda was proud of; it was her first name. Andromeda. Her mother, from what her father had told her, loved the stars and insisted that their only child be named after the galaxy.

Andromeda only had that one picture of her mother, the one her father had given her years before. Her mother had been pretty, not inhumanely beautiful, but very, very pretty. She had dark, shiny hair and it fell in waves a bit below her shoulders. Her bangs were a little long and touched her eyelashes, which were thick and framed bright, intelligent-looking blue eyes. Her mother had been smiling in the picture, her face lit up from within, and she was wearing a cool and breezy flowered dress.

Andromeda's father had been a little teary when he had given it to her, pressing his index finger to his lips then to the picture quickly. She remembered that much clearly: the wreck her father had been, how he'd been practically unfit to care for her, the many, many nights she was left to fend for herself because her father was too absorbed with a bottle of scotch to do it himself.

Andromeda had been a little teary herself, wanting more than anything for her mother to be able to give her a hug.

She didn't know the details of her mother's murder. Andromeda had been born about halfway through the Night War, the war at the Millennium. The War had lasted about a year and a half longer. And afterward...

No one predicted what happened after. At least no one from Circle Daybreak. Daybreak had been idealistic, believing the best. Instead, they'd been blindsided and their lack of preparation for the worst instead of a fairytale ending had cost them even more. The Night World had won and a whole new world order had been set into motion. Humans - _vermin_ - were rounded up to be put into pens, like branded cattle. They were necessary, if only for their blood and their use as a food supply for the vampires. Except the humans that worked for Circle Daybreak. _Those_ humans had been killed, picked off one by one, assuming that they had survived the Final Battle to begin with.

Andromeda sadly ticked off the names that she knew. They were memorized, engraved in her mind, names she couldn't put out of her head. Eric Ross. David Blackburn. Rashel 'The Cat' Jordan. Hannah Snow. Maggie Neely. And they had all had soulmates. Soulmates who had been left behind to try to survive as best they could in this new world. And, lastly, her own mother. The details were sketchy at best; her father never elaborated. But Andromeda knew that it had been bloody. That there had been a struggle. And, worst of all, that her father had been forced to watch, unable to help, while she was killed.

And, now, Andromeda was forced to look up at her daughter, feeling like she was signing yet another death warrant. "You have to go. You have to change it. And you can."

Staria's face hardened, her eyes turning black as night as she scowled. "It's too much of a risk." Screw that. No. Fuck that. No one else had done anything to change things. Nothing significant anyway. And she was young, still a _teenager_, and expected to, what? Change the past?

"You might be able to bring your father back. Your grandmother. Please Staria," her mother pleaded, even though she wanted nothing more than to agree with her daughter. She wanted to tell her stubborn, raven-haired child to stay so that she could keep her safe.

"And I might just screw everything up even worse," Staria pointed out in a rare moment of pure logic. Granted, it would be difficult to make things any worse, but Staria had a point. They were shooting blind here and they didn't know that, even if they could send her back, things could be repaired.

Staria stalked over to the window, her lamia genes showing in the fluid grace with which she moved, and wiped at the cool fog with her palm. It seemed to always be rainy these days. Almost as if the clouds were crying... Someone was crying, anyway. Someone was always crying.

"Incidentally," a male voice said from the doorway, "you might be able to bring back Cory."

Staria turned quickly, dark hair flying and catching against her lips that she'd chewed practically raw. "Granddad!"

It was hard to picture Ash Redfern as anyone's grandfather, much less the grandfather of a seventeen-year-old. He didn't look a day past twenty-five, the year he had stopped aging. His ash blond hair was thick and shiny as ever, his face unlined and kinder than it had been when he was Staria's age. But his eyes were filled with pain and rarely shifted color from the dark gray they had been since he had lost his soulmate.

Ash looked at his granddaughter, the grave expression on his face nothing new. But there was something more behind it. Something that made Staria feel instantly ashamed of herself. She was being selfish, wasn't she? Not that that was anything new; she had a tendency to look out for herself first. And a penchant for getting into trouble, consequences be damned. Yet another reason was it was ludicrous to have her take on such an important responsibility.

"What's this I hear about you not wanting to accept your responsibilities?" Ash said, the disappointment clear in his face, but not quite meeting his eyes. Even the negative emotions never made it that far. They were just _gray_. Dull, lifeless gray.

Staria frowned. She loved her grandfather more than anyone else, and he'd always been there for her. _Always_. It was much different than what Andromeda had experienced. By the time Staria was born, enough time had passed for Ash Redfern to begin to function again, even if he was a far cry from jolly. And when Staria's father had been killed when she was eight, Ash had been like a second father. He'd been the one to hold Andromeda together.

But if he was going to be stubborn about this... "It's a crazy idea granddad. It'll never _work_. You all think I'm going to be able to… to save the world. Or save the past. Or save something. I'm not _that_ person."

"How do you know if you don't try," Ash replied, glancing at his own daughter as if to ask why this hadn't been dealt with before he had to get involved himself. There were times when Andromeda reminded him too much of his own mother: timid, weak-willed, unwilling to put her foot down about anything. She was nothing like his Mary-Lynnette.

Staria on the other hand…

"Staria look outside." It was the best explanation Ash could give his granddaughter, the best way to show her just how bad things were, how much they _needed_ her to do this, dangerous or not. When he looked at her, he could still see the same sort of fire that M'lin had always had in her eyes. Ash respected Staria for that. More importantly, it made him certain that, if the young girl tried, she could make this work. She could do this.

Staria tilted her head to the side quizzically, as if asking her grandfather what it was that he expected from her. But then obediently turned to look out the window.

"What do you see?" he asked.

"Gray," Staria answered. "A bleak gray sky. Just the way it's always been." As long as she could remember. The witches that didn't follow Circle Midnight said that the Earth was crying out in pain. They said that the planet was reacting to the atrocities it had seen and the blood spilled on its soil. Staria thought it all sounded like a bunch of New Age bullshit that only witches could come up with, but no one else had been able to come up with a better explanation.

"Wouldn't you like to see a blue sky?" A fair enough question, especially since Staria had always asked why the weather was always so dreary when she'd been younger. "Oh yes," Ash went on, cutting Staria off with a brief smile, "we had blue skies. Clear blue skies. At night..." He got a faraway look in his eyes as if remembering something long forgotten. "Your grandmother would go out and look at the stars. She'd take her telescope and look at far off planets and galaxies. She loved the night sky. Almost as much as she loved your mother." Ash paused to smile at his daughter. For all of her shortcomings, Ash still felt fondly for his only child, his one last direct link to Mary-Lynnette.

Andromeda blinked back tears at the reference.

"So, Staria, how about it," Ash continued, as though he hadn't taken a brief detour down memory lane. "Circle Daybreak will take care of you. Our counterparts will be there. You'll feel right at home."

"I still don't understand what makes you think that I can change anything! You'd have to send me right in the middle of the war. And no one is going to listen to a seventeen-year-old _anyway_." Staria very nearly stamped her foot in frustration. It was difficult enough being a teenaged girl. Now she had the weight of the world – of the past _and_ future – on her shoulders. Of course her initial reaction was to balk and stomp around like a belligerent child.

Ash reacted calmly, though. Much more calmly than he would have ever reacted before the Final Battle. Closing the door, he gave his granddaughter a _look_, one that clearly told her to sit down and listen. So Staria sat down.

"Staria, the main reason that Circle Daybreak lost was because Maya and Hunter Redfern staged their deaths. Daybreak didn't know. We – they – had no idea. They didn't realize that the Night World's leaders were still alive. If they had..." he trailed off. "We're going to send you back to when I was only nineteen. Then it's up to you to let them know and help them take care of Maya and Hunter."

"But why _me,_" Staria threw back, still stuck on that point and still unwilling to let it go, no matter how much she loved her grandfather. "Why doesn't someone else do it? I always manage to screw everything up anyway. I don't see why you'd _want_ me to try to do something this important."

"Staria, it's the prophecy," Andromeda reminded her gently. "You know that…"

"_One from the future, who lives in the night_

_A walker through time, able to bring the past clear sight_," Staria recited dutifully, as though she'd heard it a thousand times before. In all honesty, she _had._ "So _what_. That could be anyone."

"You've already shown us your psychometric powers," Ash explained. His granddaughter's ability to visualize past events as though she had actually been there was a closely kept secret. Something they didn't want the Night World to find out about. "Now we just have to get you to tap into your power. To have you go to these past events. Physically."

"And what if I _can't_?"

"Then we were wrong," Ash said simply. "And the prophecy isn't about you. But either way we have to try." Because they had nothing to lose. They'd all already lost the things and people most important to them.

Staria looked ready to object again, but Ash quickly spoke up so that she couldn't. "Every one of us in this room has lost our soulmate to violence. Staria, if you succeed, you can have Cory back."

Staria's breath caught in her throat as though something had welled up there to choke her. There was his name again. Oh, how she longed to feel Cory's arms around her. To feel his lips pressed to hers. But every memory she had of him was laced with blood. Dark, sticky blood that had seeped through her fingers even as she'd tried to cover his wounds with her own hands. Had her mother and grandfather experienced the exact same thing?

Did she really have to ask? She already knew the answer.

Cory had been a mixed breed too: half werewolf, half lamia. He'd never known his father. But his mother, Astral, was on of the nicest people Staria knew. Astral had accepted Staria as her own, differences in species aside, as Astral herself was a werewolf. There was bad blood there, between the 'shifters and the vampires, but Astral had never let it affect her relationship with Staria, or let it affect Staria and Cory's relationship.

And then Cory had been brutally attacked by a lamia gang who had been threatening Staria for being a 'mutt.' Ironic, really, considering that Cory was half canine. But maybe they had thought that he was too easy of a target and that she, half Redfern, was the one who had truly violated Night World law by being a mixed breed.

She had tried to stop Cory from jumping in, telling him that it wasn't worth it. It just _wasn't worth it_. But the fight had been inevitable, and, deep down, Staria had known that. It had ended with Cory having a stake stabbed through his heart right before her eyes.

To save him... to bring him back... She blinked back tears. Staria Oceanrose didn't cry; it was one of her many rules. But the thought was too enticing to ignore. She _couldn't_ ignore it. And, if she felt that way, she could only imagine how much her mother and grandfather were hoping and wishing she could change things so they could have their soulmates back as well.

Staria looked up at her mother, then met her grandfather's gaze directly. "I'll do it. I'll try."

Staria looked at the witch warily. She wasn't a fan of witches, political correctness thrown to the wind. The woman had gray streaks running through her yellow hair and her face was wrinkled with age, but her brown eyes were kind. Staria struggled to bring up a name. Harman... Thea Harman. That was it.

Thea must have been approaching 60, but her hands, unlike her cheeks and forehead, were young looking as they moved deftly over a pot of herbs. She shook the final mixture into a velvet pouch and pressed it into Staria's hand. "This is a charm for enhancing your natural powers. It should help you access them more easily. Help you travel back."

Ash gave Thea a grateful look. Daybreak witches were hard to come by these days, but Thea was one of the, if not _the_, best. "We don't know what we'd do without you."

Thea smiled; it were serene, but pained, a memory long-since lived passing over her expression. "I suppose everything I do is for Eric. Goddess bless his soul."

The corner of Ash's mouth turned down and his own memories got the better of him. "Yes," he agreed. "Those are the things that get us through the days."

They both apparently didn't want to elaborate, though, because Thea turned to look at Staria a moment later, all business once again. "Do you have everything you need?"

Staria nodded once, even though she didn't really think that she could _possibly_ ever pack appropriately – or thoroughly – for this sort of trip.

"Then I send you off with the blessings of the Witches Of Light," Thea told her. The Witches of Light were those Hearthwomen who refused to live by Circle Midnight's code of honor. 'We might obey Night World law,' they said. 'But we will not compromise our beliefs.' It was the closest they could come to using the word 'Daybreak' without committing treason.

All in all, it was an honor to receive their blessing.

"Okay, Staria. You know what to do," Ash said quietly. He suddenly sounded uncertain, now that the moment was finally here. If this didn't work… if Staria wasn't the one… he wasn't sure what he would do. Ash supposed they would have to keep searching for the person the prophecy spoke of, but he knew it would be difficult to start from square one. "Picture the place, the time. And just..." He trailed off and shrugged, unsure of how her power worked.

Staria looked around the room one last time. Because this could quite possible be the last time she was here. Ever. Even if she lived – even if she _survived_ this insane task – changing the past meant changing the future. And if the future was different, she didn't know what she would come back to. Or even if she would be able to come back. After all, her powers only worked on _past_ events, not future ones.

"Staria..." Ash said, breaking into her thoughts. And when Staria glanced at him she almost gasped in surprise: his eyes had shifted color. Not much, they were still mostly gray. But his irises were tinted with blue. It wasn't something she'd never seen before, not when it came to her grandfather. She'd been told that she had inherited his color-changing eyes. But, while hers went through the spectrum to match her moods, Ash's always stayed the same.

"Yes granddad?"

"Say hello to... Mary-Lynnette for me?" He stopped and focused on the ground, almost as if he was embarrassed. Like he was nineteen again and trying to deny just how deeply he felt for his soulmate. As though it was still taboo.

"I will. I promise," she said vehemently, wanting her grandfather to _know_ that she meant it. That she'd find Mary-Lynnette – her grandmother – and let her know that she had a future husband who still loved her dearly, even decades after death.

Staria took a deep breath, wrapping her arms around herself, clutching the charm Thea had given her, before shutting her eyes and picturing a scene from the past. The one she'd been instructed to think of: Circle Daybreak's mansion when it had been new, whole, full of people and life and light.

Images swirled around her, faster and faster blurring into one another and Staria felt dizzy. Dizzier than her powers had ever made her before. And then she was falling… Falling to where, she didn't know. She was vaguely aware that she should have hit the ground at some point if she was fainting.

She didn't.

The images swirled faster now, beating in time to some unknown rhythm, like her heart had picked up a drumbeat of its own and was willing her body to sync itself to time and space.

And then… then she felt something solid beneath her. Staria couldn't see anything now. She was surrounded by darkness.

Then she opened her eyes.


End file.
